I don't pray. Not like I should, anyway. Not in that,
"Thank you for waking me up/pray in all situations, good and bad"
kind of way that you're taught to. I pray over meals, and in airplanes before
takeoff and after landing. I pray most times when asked to, and occasionally in
times of need. But not every day; not every morning and night.
For the longest, I didn't know how. I'd heard the
rhetoric about how form doesn't matter nearly as much as substance and
sincerity. About how there are no "magic words," and that one should
simply converse with God as though He were just another being standing in the
room. I'd tried, quietly in my own head and aloud in my own solitude. I knew
I'd be heard if I spoke the words. Otherwise, it just felt like I was thinking
to myself. Long ago - back in the days when I took a knee in the corner and
prayed before every hockey game I played in, much like I'd seen my heroes do in
the pros - I was taught that there was no hope in praying for specific
outcomes. Rather, you should pray for the virtues that would encourage you to
be the arbiter of your own progress. Fortitude, patience, leadership,
discernment, grace ... I was a pro at asking for any of those.
But times have changed. As I find myself consistently
questioning where I am currenly stationed in life, what it's doing, and how
much longer I can stand to take part, my prayers have become increasingly
selfish and specific as needed. What to do, where to go, does it matter. Get me
out, help me see, place me where I need to be. Change my life, change my
surroundings, change my heart. With increased selfish surety and intensity has
come, to a point, increased frequency. The conversations have come almost
easily, some aloud and some pointedly occurring as one-and-a-half-way
conversations in my head during my quiet moments. "Be still."
This morning, I was still. Wednesday mornings are always
difficult and today was unlike any other. I've been traveling, for business and
pleasure, in the last couple of weeks and I have been bitten by the travel bug.
I've had the experience to be away from this city, out with friends, not
thinking or looking back at where I've come from. Laughing. Breathing. The the
result of a travel weekend is always a difficult, slow, dragging week. And in
the middle of every difficult, slow, dragging week is a Wednesday. I woke up
with the same feeling of dread-cum-sadness that meets me most mornings when I'm
feeling as though I am one-hundred percent in the wrong place. Rolling out of
bed and into the shower always feels like more of a chore than a wake-me-up,
but more often than not I'm able to make it in a decent elapsed time. Today was
no different. Or so I thought.
Standing in the water, I prayed. It was quiet. I was
still. Conversational to a point. The questions and requests were minute and
grandiose all at once: Show me a way out; show me that what I do is worth it;
show me where I need to be; pass along a sign to help me understand. Hundreds
of hundreds of thousands of people ask for signs every minute of every day. We
ask because we want to believe that it's that simple - that something will show
up in front of us that tells us exactly what we want to hear. And we will
believe it, because it's is just that: it's what we want to hear. Please, God,
show me a sign to give me some direction because otherwise I'm drowning
standing up.
I pray that prayer and I stay silent. The shower ends,
the uniform goes on, the door is locked, the day officially begins. More often
than not, a standing prayer is forgotten. It almost becomes inconsequential.
The day goes on without it being given a second thought. But somewhere in my
normal, hump day morning so much akin to so many others, my phone vibrated. I
thought nothing of it until I took a moment to read the text message that came
through. A picture. A picture of a little girl I'd known some months ago. A
former client of mine, now adopted and on her way to living the normal life
everyone wanted her to have amongst family. She, all of two years old, was
dressed with a backpack strapped to her, wretching her face at the camera. The
caption was simple: "[She] going to school." I responded simply in
kind, remarking on how adorable she is. The response to that was much longer,
and telling in the way that signs tend to be. Her intelligence was quantified;
the pride her mother has in her magnified. They're moving, and they vowed to
see me before they go. I was thanked, profusely, and made aware of how much
love they have for me. And I hadn't given this child a second thought since she
exited my caseload. But they still thank me, even now, some many months after
the fact. And the love. The love.
There's an inherent danger in asking for signs. Two, in
fact. One is that there's no guarantee that your sign will be clear. You're
left, then, seeing EVERYTHING as a sign to be interpreted. Little is not
imputed with some deeper meaning that you develop in your own mind to meet your
own motives. The second is thus related: we make signs say what we want them
to, and in the case of clear ones, ignore them completely if they don't fit
into our narrative. Thus, purpose defeated. We want our God to tell us what we
want to hear like everybody else, and if not, then to meet our silent prayers
with silent response.
As you can imagine, I was puzzled. This could have been
my sign. This could have been exactly what I prayed for being manifested in one
random happenstance, playing out on my Blackberry. But it doesn't fit my
narrative. It doesn't comport to the story that I'm trying to tell with my
life. It doesn't afford me the agency that I asked for, or the big red 'EXIT' sign
that I've been begging for. It's an affirmation - proof that I do matter,
despite my own second-guessing and despite my feelings of outright
helplessness. It's an assuredness that proves my worth as more than a cog in
this infernal machine, but as a human who touches people on an individual level
and helps them walk across their own personal finish line. I matter, no matter
how much I may hate Wednesday mornings. Or Mondays. Or the other days that
don't begin with an S and aren't federal holidays. No matter how much I despise
5:00pm every Sunday because it signals the backside of the weekend. I still
touch people's lives. Intimately.
I met the picture, the ensuing text message, and the
second picture that bookended the conversation with some mix of sadness,
disapproval, confusion, and indifference. The stories didn't line up (does that
negate the call-and-response that God and I may have involved ourselves in
today?), so what difference did it make? I achieved some self-congratulation,
but that doesn't mean I get to stop here. I may have received an answer that
should cause me to dive in headlong and dedicate myself to the craft I
practice, rather than toeing the line and feeling like a fish out of water. Or
I may have been the victim of one of fate's silly, condescending coincidences.
I may never know.
The day has wound to a close, and I am no closer to
understanding what happened today than I was when it happened. However, I know
better than to close the conversation. I know to Be Still. To listen, to observe.
To be aware, with an open mind and heart, and stay alert to the times when that
one-and-a-half-way conversation becomes a two-way street. Rather than deny its
existence, I'd be far better served to inhale its presence - to repeat my
prayers, to continue my walk, and never lose sight of life on the ground.
Be still, and hear the voice of God.
